The U.S. Jobs Crisis and the Reserve Army of Labor

The U.S. Jobs Crisis and the Reserve Army of Labor

by Ben Schreiner

The U.S. unemployment situation—despite Washington’s indifference—remains rather abysmal. The November jobs report offers just the latest evidence.
Although the unemployment rate dipped to 7.7 percent in November, it did so due to a decline of 350,000 in the labor market. In other words, the drop in the official unemployment rate was due to the fact that over a quarter million Americans simply gave up on finding a job. In fact, the latest employment report found nearly 7 million Americans not counted as being in the labor force (and thus not counted as officially unemployed) actually desire work, but are simply too discouraged to search.
Meanwhile, the ongoing tragedy of the long-term unemployed shows no end, with the number of Americans having gone without work for 27 weeks or longer remaining near 5 million. At the current pace of job growth it will take a full decade to attain full employment. (This, of course, barring any return to recession over the next ten years.)
The squandered human potential, not to mention human suffering, behind all such numbers is, needless to say, truly immense.http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/12/the-u-s-jobs-crisis-and-the-reserve-army-of-labor/